2010 has been a roller coaster year for me. As Charles Dickens once wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”.

Yes, that’s perhaps the best way I can describe my journey through this year. There were great losses, but many great new additions as well. Overall, I think this year made me grow up in so many aspects, as well as allowed me to rekindle that inner child in me, allowing me to become a better me.

To have faith and trust in the unknown and unfamiliar, to hold on to hope and be grateful no matter what, and most of all to love unconditionally, truly, wholly and with no questions or fear, these were the greatest treasures 2010 gave me. However, today, as I find my heart with a wee bit of nostalgic longing and wishful thinking, I take the time out to honor the year that was by looking at the great lessons I have learned from it and how it has enriched my life, albeit at times, there were necessary pains that had to be dealt with. It’s funny though how I find myself needing to relearn a lot of the lessons I thought I had learned a few years back when I wrote a similar post.

The year started out slowly, with me finding myself caught in the same old routine of life, doing things just for the sake of doing it, but not really with much motivation or drive. But the end of January brought a sudden shock, the loss of a dear colleague who, albeit I was not very close to, had a great impact in my life. That became the catalyst for me to rise to the challenge and finally become serious about my battle with obesity, hence the birth of this blog.

In February I began to be at peace with my independence. I know that sounds strange, especially since so many want this, but for me, I’ve always been ambivalent about it, especially since I had to be independent all through my life.  I realized, however, my independence was always anchored on others expectations and rules set for me, thus not allowing me to be who I want to be. Granted that on occasion I still forget about this wonderful life lesson, I think I am learning it well enough.

As I began to work my way to being happy and content about my independent life, I found myself at the cusp of a dark night where I felt so hopeless and tired of life as I knew it. It got to the point wherein I started to hate having to go through the day because it was such a danged routine. I began to question myself, I started to feel frustrated, and it wasn’t long before I started to wish I no longer had to start a new day again. Perhaps it was also because I was fast approaching my birth month, but suffice it to say March was a difficult one to contend with, but at the end, I think it gave me the gift of darkness…the reminder that difficulties are necessary pains that make me better.

In April, as I marked my last calendar year, I began to remember that affirmation need not to come from the external, but from myself. The gift of self-affirmation, despite my being overweight and ugly (or so I described myself), was something I began to truly work on.

May taught me the art of moderation. This is when my diet journey really set off. While it manifested most in the way I dealt with food (yes, for emotional eaters like me, this is a big skill to learn!), I think my being able to take things in moderation also played a role in the way I began interacting with people around me, making me realize that I don’t need to always be available 100% for friends and colleagues and the like, and that it was okay for that to happen.

I have always been a dreamer, and I think I have always had a vision of what a happy ending should be like, but since it never works out the way I think it should, I would often find myself disappointed. This June, thanks to the movie Sex and the City 2, I began to realize that I have to make my own happy ending. As the movie showed, even if Carrie and the other girls seemed to have gotten their happy endings, they were still looking for that “glitter”. I guess it’s something we’ve all been taught to do, define happy endings in a certain way that is, without realizing that maybe a happy ending has no single definition and you just go with what works for you.

I think the tides turned for me in July as it ushered in a whole world of new beginnings for me…from beginning to really be comfortable with who I am in all sense of the word to letting go of inhibitions that bound me and made me conform to things that weren’t really me. It’s funny how this all started out over Facebook….and since then I haven’t been the same.

While I began opening myself up to new beginnings, I still was very cautious and careful, but all through August, I found myself challenging that. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you, and I often found myself flailing, but I learned to take risks, not just in the things I do, but moreso in taking the risk and starting new relationships with people around me. The biggest risk I took was finally dropping the “it’s complicated” on my status and finally saying enough is enough. In a ways letting go of that allowed me to remember I deserve much more, even though the familiarity of routine is comforting and assuring.

I grew even more in that regard through September, and I think what I take away most from that month is the beauty of raw honesty…no matter how ugly, no matter how painful, sometimes, you’re lucky enough to find someone who will take you and love you despite that ugliness and imperfection. I think that realization has allowed me to be hopeful once again of someday being able to find someone who will love me for who I am and I can share my life with him, not necessarily in a fairytale ending as I once imagined, but a true, honest, real relationship that will allow me to grow even more. In the same manner, the recognition my blog got in September allowed me to stop hiding behind the fat and just letting people see through me and I think that has made all the difference in my weight loss.

October was a month of existential mockery and cosmic jokes, to say the least. It was a truly tumultuous month, bringing me the brightest of days and the darkest of nights. The archives of the month of October was filled with very soulful and heartfelt posts, I think, because this was a month where I found myself in “ruins” but at the end of the day, as Liz Gilbert said in Eat Pray Love, ruin is a gift. And like the way she described the Augsteum, my soul was very much like that place in Rome…”It’s one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won’t let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we’re afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked at around to this place, at the chaos it has endured – the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn’t been so chaotic, it’s just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.” I learned so much from October, I cannot begin to explain how much my life transformed from that…from random road trips where I had deep conversations with my soul, to challenging old beliefs and redefining old notions such as happiness in a way that works for me, finding myself hurt anew and laying down old ones, oh, the ups and downs I tell you! But today I grateful for everything that transpired that fateful month because I think I emerged triumphant, and not just alive, but better. I take with me now the fine art of balance, remembering that it is in this balance that I can find myself in a place of contentment.

There’s a saying that goes “shallow brooks are noisy”. I have always been a noisy person, especially when I’m around others. I tend to talk too much and find myself filling up the space with chatter. I guess it’s a way for me to cover up for the fact that I’m overly self-conscious and insecure. November, however, brought me the great gift of silence. I began to find myself comfortable in being still and just letting myself be. While I wrote a lot about that earlier on before the month of November, it wasn’t till November that I truly began to be good with it. I can now sit with someone and just listen from my heart, even if we don’t talk, in the same manner I can now sit in a room full of people and not feel the need to be part of the chatter because so much more can be said in silence. Also, I really began to become comfortable with just being with just me, or alone in the quiet, with no music, no movement, just sitting in silence.

As I ended the year, I took time out to go on a little road trip to heal my heart after such a trying year. Although the last months of the year were much better for me compared to the start, it was not free from hurt and disappointment. So I took a road trip to Laiya, my soul’s home. What I didn’t know, however, is that the resort I go to all the time was closing. I realize now that it was the perfect way to end the year…closing cycles (as Paulo Coelho calls it). But this time, I think I did not just go full circle in my soul journey. I closed the cycle and moved forward, opening the door to more new beginnings. I began to just have faith and trust that no matter what, things will work out. One night during Simbang Gabi mass in Ateneo (yes, I did go to the Blue School even if I’m from the Green School ), I found myself breathless with the homily which made me appreciate the true value of faith, trust and just doing what you should not because of expectations of rewards or reciprocity, but just because. What left me so breathless, I think, was that a few weeks ago during a conversation with my dear sage, she reminded me that I should not let myself fall into the old trappings of my life where I find myself holding on unconsciously to the hope that “when it’s my turn to ask, it will be given because when I had some to give, I gave”. Ergo: it made me challenge the notion that “do unto others what you want done unto you”. I think what works better for me now is do unto others what you want to do, just because it’s what you want to do and it’s the right thing for you to do. I don’t know if that makes much sense, but it does to me teeeheeeheee.I guess what I’m driving at is that now I help, not so in the end who I help will help me back, or I give so that person gives back to me too. I just do it because I want to.  Bottom line: I have stopped expecting people around me to reciprocate what I give out, but I still go do it because somewhere downt the line, I know that it will come back to me, maybe not in the same way, shape or form, but in the right time and condition that I need it to be.

And so as we bid 2010 goodbye in less than two days, I want to say thank you to the year that was and a bigger thank you to the people, both online and off, who have enriched my life by simply being part of my journey this year.